


techie, hacker, geek

by pentagrammed



Category: How to Get Away with Murder, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternative Universe - CIA, Alternative Universe - FBI, M/M, crack ship, if you guessed that director hale is laura and not talia you get points, this is kind of at the point where i hate it so i'm posting it before i trash it completely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2018-03-30 22:49:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3954805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pentagrammed/pseuds/pentagrammed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's World War Geek between FBI Agent Danny Mahealani and CIA Agent Oliver Hampton over the rights to a murder case.</p>
            </blockquote>





	techie, hacker, geek

Jackson burst through his office door on a Wednesday morning. He ran his hand through his gelled blond hair, dropping into the extra chair that FBI technical analyst Danny Māhealani kept in his office, just for his guests. Jackson was one of the most frequent of those guests.

“Danny, you’re never going to believe this next case.” He said with a wicked grin on his face, akin to the cat that caught the canary in his expression. Danny, a tall and tan agent rolled his chair away from his computer, turning to him. He had an annoyed but fond expression as he faced Jackson.

“What’s up? More teenagers on drugs who think they’re turning into mythical creatures?” He raised a wary eyebrow at his best friend; Jackson only ever got excited about their weirder cases.

“No. But you can’t tell me you didn’t love the werewolf case, that was the funniest thing.” Jackson had a point. Danny had been allowed to tag along on that case, watching the rest of his team find the cause of LSD laced water that had spread through a small town nearby.

“What is it this time?” He asked, rolling his chair back to his computer – the main computer in his office, since his system was split between four different monitors running different programs and operations. If Jackson was going to waste his time, he’d at least pull some old case up to run through data again.

“You remember the case that went cold on us a few years ago?”

“Which one?” Danny asked. His tone was a little bitter; the team worked hard but there were a few cases they never closed. He would still check on the progress of a lot of them, especially the ones that took queer victims and victims of color. Jackson knew those hit too close to home for him most of the time.

“The one with the dead prostitutes.”

Danny froze and turned to Jackson, curiosity on his face. He typed something on the keyboard of his main computer quickly, accessing the FBI and local police files for the case in seconds.

“Ripper 2.0, we called it.” He recalled. “I remember that. 2008 to 2011, we had 9 murders of tall, thin and blonde prostitutes in those three years, found in trashy motels around the city. Three murders within the month that lined up with seemingly no holidays or important events, and each resulted in the prostitute having been sexually assaulted, her throat slit and her tongue pulled out. Through her, uh, throat.”

“Colombian necktie.” Jackson confirmed, nodding at him.

Danny remembered the dead bodies. He saw each one of them. The taste of bile rose in his throat as he pictured them, the blood spilling on the hotel floors from the girls’ necks and their tongues lying in the liquid pools. He shook his head.

“That was a bad case.” He said with a grimace. Danny had gotten assigned to be the tech for Jackson’s team on that case, and he’d seen the damage first hand. He remembered getting sick upon seeing the first few bodies, but by the time the last one had surfaced he’d become accustomed to the gory scene.

“A case we’re going to solve!” Jackson answered with an excited gleam in his eyes. “If the CIA doesn’t snatch it from us first, anyways. Director Hale is doing her best to get us the case instead of them, but their director – Keating, is it? She wants it badly. She’s trying to get her best team access.”

“The CIA did work on the original with us, just not the Keating 5. Or is it 7? I forget how many agents the team has now.” Danny mused. “But wait, what was the break in the case?” There had to be new evidence. The Bureau wouldn’t open a new case just because they wanted to. So maybe some DNA had been found, a perp in another case had matched, or –

“There’s another body.” Jackson told him.

Danny winced. “Oh no.” This killer left a trail of bodies within a limited time frame, giving them around a week before the next girl would be found.

“But here’s the thing, after going three years without a kill, the unsub got a little sloppy this time.”

“He left DNA?” Danny asked. That would be their best hope, he could run a search for anyone with the same DNA and if he bent the rules a little, he could extend the search to DNA similar to the perp. He could find parents or siblings who had committed offenses already, test the DNA of their siblings and catch the perp easily enough.

He looked up at Jackson, who was shaking his head while Danny’s mind ran through the easy catch. “Nope. But there was a security camera in the hotel where he killed the new girl. It caught just enough of his face that you should be able to identify him.”

“Oh, absolutely. Send me the clearest picture you can get off the camera.” Danny turned to a different computer, opening the facial recognition software. He’d helped develop it in his early days in the FBI and trusted it completely. It used the DMV database to recognize and match facial features from video cameras, and since its creation had caught them several unsubs.

“Chances are he lives in DC, since all the murders have taken place here.” Jackson told him. “Run the search statewide first, and you should find him. If he doesn’t show up, search the surrounding states.”

“I know how to do my job.” Danny shot back. But he was grinning, and Jackson recognized the easy tone of his best friend’s excitement.

“I’ll have McCall get you assigned to us for this case. With you helping, we’ll have the perp identified before the CIA can even fill out the paperwork to claim it. It’ll be great.” Jackson disappeared through the door of Danny’s office.

Danny’s work as a techie – a technical analyst – in the Bureau extended to several teams. On a big case like this, McCall, who led Jackson’s team, would be able to put Danny on a sort of reserve, prioritizing Danny’s help on these deaths over any other the Bureau would be investigating, and Danny would be allowed to go to the crime scenes.

Danny called out after him. “Jackson, most people don’t consider a ten person homicide a great case!” But he was feeling a little more hopeful. Ripper 2.0 was a case that had plagued Jackson’s team for years and if they could close the case thanks to this break, Danny was thrilled he would be able to help.

* * *

Wes left the file on Oliver’s desk before he arrived in the morning. When he came in to work, around 8:30, Oliver Hampton saw it in his office in the CIA headquarters building and picked it up curiously.

He almost immediately wished he hadn’t. It was filled with pictures of dead young women, their throats slit and tongues pulled out through the wounds in their necks. He’d, of course, heard of this method of murder but never seen it in all the cases he’d come across in the years he’d been working for the Agency.

“That’s disgusting.” He muttered, flipping the manila folder closed and going to find Wes.

The other agent was in his own office. Oliver stood in the doorframe, knocking at the door that Wes always kept open anyways.

“Hey, Oliver!” Wes greeted him cheerfully – way too cheerfully for a man who’d seen those awful pictures and decided to leave them on Oliver’s desk with no warning. “Did you get the case?”

“This is one of the grossest things I’ve ever seen, Wes. What the fuck is this?” Oliver asked, making a disgusted face. Sometimes he thought he was the only one on his team who reacted to their cases the way a normal human being would. The other agents could be incredibly nonchalant about the horrors that crossed their paths every day.

“Sorry, I know it’s kind of awful. We’re trying to get this case from the local FBI. It went cold a few years ago and since then it’s been their problem, but another body turned up two days ago with a valid lead. They nicknamed him Ripper 2.0.” Wes informed him.

“All prostitutes?” Wes nodded at Oliver to confirm. “And you want me to find the guy who did it?”

“No, for now I just want you to read up on the case. We’re trying to get access to a picture of him taken by a security camera, but the FBI doesn’t want to let go of it that easily. We’re taking it to the directors, they’ll probably give us access over the team that’s had it since it went cold.”

“Was any CIA team on the original deaths?” Oliver questioned. If there had been a CIA team involved with the first investigations, four years prior, then they had a decent chance of claiming the new evidence for themselves. If not, then the FBI would likely get the case.

“One that’s since been put out of commission, but since Bonnie and Frank were the handlers for that team, and as they now handle us, we may be in luck.” Oliver didn’t think they could be that hopeful, but Wes was ever the optimist. Oliver ran a hand through his thick, dark hair, which was already becoming a mess.

“I’ll have someone come by to notify you when we’re granted access. Scan it, run it and let us know when he’s identified as soon as possible.” Wes finished. It was clear he was dismissing Oliver, but the techie hesitated before leaving.

“Wes, if you could do me a favor. Send Laurel, or Michaela.” He said quietly. “I’m not really in the mood to deal with Connor today.” Wes met his eyes and nodded to him, a soft smile on his face. Connor and Oliver had broken up months before and still hadn’t worked past the awkward ex stage.

When Oliver returned to his office, he sat down and opened the file again. He flipped past the gruesome photos to get to the detailed report of the case, headed with the FBI logo and began to read.

The first murder had occurred in 2008, when a young prostitute’s body was found mutilated on the floor of a cheap motel room. Only a week later, there was another, and a week after that, a third. It had continued for three years with a body count of nine – ten including the recent death. Even weirder was that the three murders each year would line up on the same dates as the previous ones. But then the perpetrator had caught on to the investigation and vanished without a trace. Up until the last body, there’d been no other murders with the same combination of victimology, MO, and signature.

One of the reports included in the case was written by the local feds’ technical analyst. It explained how he had cross-referenced the dates with important triannual holidays; birthdays, anniversaries or dates of deaths that could be linked together; and anything he could possibly think of. He’d been unable to find a reason for the dates the unsub had chosen, which he’d hoped could identify a suspect.

Oliver snorted. He’d run the dates again to make sure the FBI hacks hadn’t missed anything. There was a strong rivalry between the two departments, and Oliver, being proud of the Agency he worked for, knew the FBI wasn’t as good as them.

Typing quickly, he entered the dates into the CIA search database, checking the same parameters the FBI had until he could think of other ideas those days would be chosen. The most obvious link would be that they lined up with one of three important dates in the unsub’s life: the birthday, anniversary or death date of someone he had loved. It was Criminology 101.

He leaned back and let the system run the search, and pulled up another one to check holidays around those times. Sometimes they had killers who scheduled their crimes around obscure pagan holidays, and those were always a pain to track.

A knock on his door made Oliver look up, and he cringed when he recognized the shape of the person behind it. The stupid hair slicked up with gel meant it could only be one person, and it was the last person Oliver wanted to talk to.

Briefly, he wondered if he could just hide and pretend he wasn’t in his office but Connor had probably seen him returning from Wes’s to his own. Damn him.

“Not right now, Connor.” He called out. The shadow at his door ducked its head down and turned away. Oliver breathed a sigh of relief. He had work to do, and there were dead girls the team needed to get closure for. They had no time for Oliver to figure out his problems with his ex-whatever Connor had been.

* * *

Danny was still waiting for results on the facial recognition search a few hours later. The statewide search would take a few hours, even though he had narrowed the search to Caucasian men in the state. So long as this guy had a Maryland license, the system would find him eventually.

Danny turned away from the computer and turned to examine the photo Scott brought him. The hotel security camera had caught his face slightly angled down. He wore a baseball cap and a hood over it. His ethnicity – white – was obvious in the picture, and his gender, even though the sexual assaults signaled his gender to the FBI long before.

Someone knocked on Danny’s door, barely waiting for him to answer before she came in. It was Lydia, carrying a couple folders.

“More work?” He asked, nodding to the case files she held. She looked at them, confused.

“Oh, no.” She said. “These were just an excuse to come see you. I’m going to ask you to do something for us. It’s a little morally grey, so if you’re willing to break the law a little that would be appreciated.”

“Uhm.” Danny didn’t have time to get anything else out before she cut in.

“Great. So how confident are you in your hacking skills?”

“Very? Unless you want me to hack the Pentagon or the CIA or Al-Qaeda. Then I’m less confident.”

“That's unfortunate.” Lydia sighed and dropped her empty files on his workspace. “Because that’s exactly what I need.”

Danny turned to face her in his chair, crossing his arms and looking at her suspiciously. “I’m not hacking into the Pentagon, if that's what you’re asking for.” He informed her. Not that he thought Lydia was that reckless.

“We are having you send a copy of the photo of the unsub to the CIA, as well as the video clip from the security tape. When the CIA opens it, we want you to worm in through their firewalls or however you do it and slow them down a little.” She said. Her tone was very matter-of-fact and Danny slumped in his seat.

“Why me? Why do I always get involved with you guys?” He moaned. Lydia laughed.

“But seriously, we need this. The directors decided the case would go to whoever discovers his identity first.”

“So, if I stop the CIA techs from IDing him, you get the lead?”

Lydia patted his shoulder. “I knew you’d understand.” He glared at her unhappily but she ignored it, beaming at him.

“When I get caught for this, because I do not think I’m good enough to break into the CIA without being noticed, I’m telling them it was your fault. You gave me official orders and as my superior, I had to obey you.”

“You’ve already got a head start on the search, so just hold him off for a while. I’m going to get Jackson, we’re going to run the procedure by you.” Lydia slipped out the door and Danny groaned.

But he only paused for a moment, before he got to work. He typed a few commands into one of the side computers he didn’t frequently use. A black screen with green lettering came up and Danny cracked his knuckles before he began.

Ten minutes later, Jackson and Lydia came back into his office. Lydia was swinging a USB drive on a string. Jackson closed and locked the door behind them, lowering the blind that occasionally covered the window into Danny's office.

“I’ve repurposed this computer here, to use. It’s been disconnected from any of the FBI systems and databases my other computers have access to.” He explained to them. “It’s a precaution, to keep them out of my business while I get in theirs.”

“Do you think you can do it?” Lydia asked. Jackson scoffed beside her, as if he was sure Danny could do it in his sleep.

“Give me the flash drive.” Danny ordered, holding his hand out. They grinned at him and she dropped it into his palm.

A minute later he had the video open, accessing the makeup of the clip. They watched his fingers fly across the keys, rewriting pieces of code within the video.

“What is this for?” Jackson asked.

Danny waved his hand towards him. “I’m rewriting a simple change into the video so that it plays on a loop. This guy’s computer is going to run a scan of the code to make sure the video is harmless and the piece of code that loops the video is going to hide a bug that I’m placing. CIA hack opens the video, runs the cap on his search system, and leaves it alone. He’s not going to sit and watch it. After his computer is untouched by him for a while, I tap in through the bug I placed in the code and screw around with his computer for a bit. He will notice it, if he’s any good, but if we’re lucky it’ll take some time and I finish my search before he does.”

They stared at him. Jackson let out a slow wolf whistle, while an appreciative smirk spread across Lydia’s lips.

“I don’t think we tell you we love you enough.” She said.

Danny grinned. “And after I set his computer to slow it down a little, my computer here will still be running the scan, and this computer will be working on reconstructing his face more clearly so we can distribute copies to the local police departments, other agencies, around the Bureau: like a sketch artist software program.”

“And this is going to help us?”

“If we have a clearer view of his face to circulate, then we may be able to find a precinct that arrested him already and recognizes him. That may just be what we need to speed up the identification process. My search is good, but I’d rather have as many options out there as possible.”

Lydia nodded. “That sounds good. And this guy won’t catch you fucking up his computer?”

“Oh, he will. But once my presence is located, I’ll be alerted and out of there faster than he can catch me. This computer’s been wiped clean so he can’t trace it back to me in any way.”

The three felt an exhilarating rush, excited and a little scared, but it seemed like they’d be able to get away with it, and the Ripper 2.0 case would be theirs for good.

* * *

The email came to Oliver’s computer before he found out the FBI would be sending it to him. He noted it curiously in his inbox, and his cursor hovered over the ‘Delete’ button as he frowned.

“What is this supposed to be?” He whispered to himself. The email had no subject and he didn’t dare open it immediately until he knew what the two attachments were. He didn’t recognize the sender either and was about to assume it was spam for his trash when Michaela popped in.

“Oliver, within the next hour the analyst from the Bureau should be emailing you the picture. We’re going to need you to start immediately.” She told him.

“I think I just got it, actually.” He answered, pushing his glasses up on his nose a little and settling in front of the screen. Michaela moved next to him, taking the empty chair he kept in his office for guests – usually Connor, before they has ended things.

Oliver opened the photo attachment first, looking at the picture quickly.

“There’s a video too?” Michaela asked, leaning over his shoulder.

“Yeah… Is that not supposed to be there?” He hesitated before opening it, but it was from the Bureau, it wouldn’t be anything irrelevant.

The clip was a six second loop of the security camera. It showed the perpetrator in the lobby the night before the body was found, paying for the room the girl was found in. That was the video the photo of his face had come from, in the brief moment the camera caught a clear glimpse of him.

“Oh. I didn’t think they were sending that too.” Michaela didn’t seem worried. “Okay. They’re actually unintentionally helping us, since now we won’t have to throw a fit to get the video from them like we did the photo.”

Oliver saved them both and uploaded the picture to the software he had. It would run the same facial features of ex-cons in the prison database (he found it easier and quicker to use than other methods, since many of the suspects he found had previous records) and notify him when a match pinged in the system.

“Now we wait.” He told Michaela, who thanked him and left him to take care of it.

He turned away from the screen to let his computer run, and opened a game of Zuma on another screen. He had to entertain himself somehow while the time went by.

A few hours later, he heard a soft cough from his doorway. “Looks like you’re getting a lot done here.” Someone pointed out, and Oliver sighed. He would have had to face Connor sooner or later.

“It’s going to take some time to get results, and that screen,” He gestured to the computer on the side. “Is going to ping when it finds a match. In the meantime, I am staying here so they pay me.” Connor moved into the room. He took the seat Michaela had vacated hours before, _his_ seat before they’d broken things off.

“Oliver, can we talk?” Connor asked. Oliver froze up. Connor had wanted to talk for the past two months and Oliver had avoided him for most of that time.

“I’m on a very important level of this game.” He answered. “It takes a lot of skill to get this far and I’m probably about to beat a world record, so you’re going to have to come back in a few weeks. Months. Maybe a couple years.”

“Ollie, I-”

“No.” He snapped, cutting Connor off immediately after hearing the pet name.

Connor rolled his eyes. Oliver pretended he didn’t see. “I know you can pause it, Oliver.”

“No I can’t.”

“It says pause right there.” Oliver sighed. He clicked the button Connor was talking about and turned around.

“Okay. You’re right. I’ve been avoiding you. I don’t want to talk about it. You’re not ready to talk about it because I know you never went to see the psychologist you were ordered to see. I’m not your shrink, I’m your ex-boyfriend. And I have a job to do, same as you. So go do yours.” Oliver hissed. Connor raised his hands up in a ‘calm down’ motion. He stepped back and then his eyes flickered to the computer behind Oliver.

“Wait. Oliver. I think your computer’s doing something wrong.”

Oliver spun around immediately. “What do you mean?” He asked. Nothing appeared wrong but he could only see the one photo loading to be compared.

“I’ve been watching it since I came in here. The last ten photos to show up were of black women. Unless you’re working on a different case, which you shouldn’t be, that’s not the guy we’re looking for.”

Oliver watched the screen. Sure enough, Connor was right. The next ID to come up was a young black woman and the computer took a minute to confirm they were not a match. The next to come up was the same case, and the third.

“That’s not right, I filtered the search, I set parameters for it when I first ran the photo, how did it miss that?” His fingers were a blur as he stopped the search. “Connor, it’s been doing this for hours! There’s probably 30,000 black women in the system parameters here!” He wailed.

“Fuck, Oliver. How does that happen?”

Oliver frowned and checked something quickly. “There’s someone in my system, what the fuck.”

“They changed the search on you?” Oliver nodded, humming under his breath. “The FBI agents who sent you the photo – would they do that to keep you from finding it?”

“Connor, I could kiss you right now. Of course. That tech who emailed me the new evidence must have slipped in through my security when I opened the email. How did he get through without it alerting me though, I should have caught that.”

He didn’t see Connor’s soft grin while the other boy leaned forward to watch.

“Did you run a virus search on the email?” He asked.

“Yeah, but.” Oliver didn’t continue the sentence, but he sounded overly frustrated in those two words. “Hah! He hid himself in the video code. Oh, he’s good. But I’m better – oh, shit.”

Oliver typed furiously into the computer. Connor watched screens of text scroll by, unable to read fast enough or understand what his ex was doing. Then Oliver stopped, closed it and relaxed back in the chair.

“What happened?”

“He knows I found him out so he dropped out of my system. He probably won’t be back, but I’m going to leave it open for him. Hackers are curious people and he’s may want to see the damage he did. But before he left, I tagged his identity and when he goes back to his system, we’re going with him. Let’s see what he’s up to.”

The screen changed to a blank Windows desktop. There was a cursor moving, but Oliver wasn’t controlling it. They watched the other man run a different program on the computer that would ensure there was nothing left to be found on the computer, that it would be untraceable back to him. If Oliver hadn’t already caught him, it would have made it impossible to find him again.

“He’s probably using a government sanctioned computer.” Connor pointed out. Oliver nodded.

“So he would have tried to disconnect any connection between this one and the others in his system, but I can get in.” Oliver said. “He’s going to shut down this computer for a few weeks, won’t reopen it until the ownership of this case is settled.”

He looked up to see a shark like smirk on Connor’s face. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously at the other agent, who shrugged.

“Nothing. It’s just, if I know you, and I do, you are going to get him back for messing up your precious software.” Oliver laughed.

“Oh, you can bet on it. Danny Māhealani is going down.”

* * *

From that point on, Danny was a little paranoid about what he’d done. Lydia and Jackson had left, elated, and even though Danny wasn’t going to use turn on the other computer until he was sure the CIA agent had forgotten about him, he was still a little worried it would get back to him. The guy had his email, for god’s sake, he could find him in minutes.

But he had other things to worry about. The suspect hadn’t turned up in the statewide search and Danny was getting frustrated waiting for the national search to finish. It would take a lot longer, and with thirty seconds spent on each license photo, comparing the two, he would be waiting a lot longer unless he sped the search up.

The perpetrator looked to be between 30 and 45, so he added that to his search, and prioritized state licenses nearby. The man was unlikely to have a California driver’s license or ID if he was committing regular murders in DC. Maybe he was from Delaware or Virginia.

A soft chirp from one of his other programs prompted him to turn to a different screen and he checked the software that had been creating a sketch of the suspect. It looked fine to him, an accurately animated version of the man in the security tape.

He copied the sketch and pasted it into an empty document, typing out the details of the man underneath. _Caucasian male, approx. 5’9”, 230 lbs. Hair and eye color unknown. Wanted in regards to the 2008 case file 095351._

After that, Danny printed out a copy to bring to Scott for approval. He only needed to print one and he could drop that off to Scott whenever. They were still banking on the facial recognition software to find the perp first; this was just a backup plan.

His printer was in the corner of the room, rarely used because Danny didn’t often need hard copies of his work, when email existed. It spit out the sheet immediately and Danny ignored it for later. But after a brief pause, the printer printed another. He must have hit two copies, the agent thought.

He wasn’t going to get up but when it reached the fifth copy, Danny slid his chair over to the printer, confused.

The page had his face on it. Not the suspect, not the animation Danny had created and set to print, it was _his_ face, with his name underneath it. Clear as day, it read Danny Māhealani and his details, his height and weight and race and his fucking _address_ were listed under it.

“Fuck!” He yelled. The printer was steadily sending out more copies, he stood frozen until it got to 20 pages before he swore again and scrambled to unplug it. That stopped the printing but Danny was still unsure what to do.

He looked at the pages again. They had all the information that was on his driver’s license, as well as the picture right where he’d placed the sketch of the suspect. He considered himself lucky his Social Security number wasn’t listed on it as well.

A soft beeping noise filled the room, and Danny groaned as he turned to the computer he’d used to break into the CIA guy’s system. It was on, of course, and flashing the words, “Hello Danny” at him. The phrase began to fill up the screen, covering it entirely while he watched. Then it emptied entirely, but not before telling him: “It’s on.”

Danny sank back into his chair, rubbing his forehead. He could feel the migraine coming on and embarrassment as well. God, he wanted to kill Lydia and Jackson for getting him involved in this.

He collected all the pages that had printed out and dropped them one at a time into the trash in his office. When he got to the last one, he looked at it and laughed. It was a little funny. So he left that one on his desk, to hold on to and remind him to be more careful next time he tried to hack into a top secret agency.

On his main computer, he ran a check on his firewall and wrote a couple extra lines of code to fortify it, just in case. It told him the intruder had left his system right after flashing “It’s on.” on the other screen. He closed up the wormhole that the other agent had used to get in, surprised that he’d had one open in the first place. But since the CIA tech had found that one, if he really wanted to he could find his way back into Danny’s mainframe.

He saved the original sketch to a spare flash drive he had on the desk, so he could print it in another office, one that hadn’t been tampered with. Then he looked up the employees of the CIA team they’d been fighting over the case with. The Keating 5, they were called, even though the team had expanded to 9 of the top agents. Their technical analyst, Danny’s counterpart on the other team and the agent who’d sabotaged his work, was Oliver Hampton.

Oliver’s employee file was pretty thin, and similar to Danny’s. He had a few minor infractions when he was younger for hacking and getting into government systems he shouldn’t have been able to access. The CIA had recognized his potential and snapped him up, just like the Bureau had done with Danny.

The photo that surfaced was a slightly older Asian man – Filipino, Danny corrected himself as he read that line – who wore thick rimmed, round glasses and smiled shyly at the camera. He was 27, a few years older than Danny and had been working for the Keating 5 since Danny had graduated college.

“Okay, Oliver.” Danny spoke to the photo in the file. “I’m just getting started.”

He located another entry point in his firewall, the easiest to access now that he had closed the other one. When Oliver came back, this would be the one he used. He set up a trap right at the entrance, a bug that would stop an intruder immediately. He didn’t even want to be subtle about it. This was defending his home base, not sneaking into someone else’s system.

“No more access to my computers for you.” He muttered quietly, attaching an alarm to the trap so he’d know when Oliver walked into it. Then he checked the progress of the search to make sure it was still active and untouched by meddling CIA agents. Since IDing the suspect was the overall goal, he at least had to win that game.

* * *

Oliver snickered as he saved the video of Danny’s reaction to his personal USB – a souvenir of sorts, a trophy for the winner. Danny hadn’t even realized that his camera was on and Oliver had captured the moment. Behind him, Connor was shaking his head.

“That was dramatic.” He said.

“What can I say, the kid started it. I’m not a big fan of people who try to tamper with my computers.” Oliver answered, shrugging his shoulders.

“Do you think he’ll take the bait?” Oliver shrugged again.

“Do you think I can get some alone time to redo the work I lost thanks to him? Seriously Connor, I’ve got to catch up now. He’ll try but I’m ready for him. In the meantime you go run to Wes and let him know everything is fine.” Oliver gestured to the door and turned his back on Connor. The other agent took the hint and left, closing the door.

Oliver hadn’t been entirely honest, the search would run by itself and he had reprogrammed it before planning out the cyberattack on Danny’s computer. He had to admit, he was impressed with himself. It was a little dramatic, but just enough so to scare the younger agent from bothering him again; or from thinking that he could do it unnoticed. He had kind of encouraged retaliation, telling Danny it was on between the two of them.

What was a little fun and healthy competition between the two teams? It would be a little more fun than playing Zuma for six straight hours, and Oliver knew he could one up and keep his system safe from anything Danny might try.

After another hour without a response from Danny, Oliver got impatient with waiting. He retraced the coded path he left that would bring him back to Danny’s system. The entry point he’d used before had been closed, and Oliver frowned. He hadn’t expected the other techie to find it and close it up, but he would be able to find another hole in the firewall to get through.

He located one within moments of frantic typing, smirking when he found another easily accessible access point. Without a second thought he jumped through Danny’s firewall and started typing, so Danny’s monitor would mirror itself on his.

He didn’t realize right away when his computer froze, but after a moment of waiting, his grin turned into a frown. He typed on a few keys, waiting for his computer to react, but it did nothing. The letters didn’t even show up on the screen and Oliver’s eyes widened.

“Shit, shit shit shit, you little fucker.” He swore at the screen, sliding his chair to another screen as fast as he could, intending on pulling up his firewall to block the virus that was now infecting the computer he’d been using. Oliver was only a few seconds too late to stop it, before a pixelated skull danced across his screens, turning them black in its wake.

Oliver groaned. “Don’t tell me you fucking booby-trapped me, fucking dick. Nooooo no no no.”

Rather than try and stop it, he slumped back in his chair. Restoring the system would be easy, the FBI agent had only been playing with him and everything would still be there when he rebooted his monitors. Amateur.

After a few minutes he pressed the restart button for the system. It whirred to life for a few seconds before returning to the black screen. Oliver pressed it again.

Three tries later with only the same result, he sighed and moved around the desk to examine the wires in the back. He unplugged a couple of them and pulled his private laptop out of a messenger bag beside his desk. When he had plugged the original wires into it, he turned the laptop on to write a fix-it code for his work computer.

Barely four minutes later, Connor stuck his head into the small office. “Keating incoming!”  He hissed before disappearing again. Oliver’s eyes widened and he looked around at the blank screens surrounding him. Those weren’t incriminating at all, he thought bitterly before he turned around to face the Director.

“Agent Hampton.” She said sternly when she arrived. He tried to smile at her but it slipped off his face when her expression remained grim. “I’m here because we got an alert that your computer system was down, and because after hearing that, I was told that you have been playing hacking games on your CIA sanctioned computer.”

He protested immediately. “They aren’t- I’m not playing- and I didn’t start- I can explain, Director Keating.” Oliver bit his tongue after that. Keating scared him more than a little, and she had the power to fire him and make him disappear.

“I expect you to, Hampton.” Keating’s gaze was sharp and bored through him. Oliver gulped.

“There’s a case you gave to the Keating 5, okay, and you and Director Hale – the FBI Director, you decided whichever team identified the suspect first could take the case. And when the FBI techie – my counterpart, but in the Bureau – sent us over the information he also attacked my system to slow our search down so I kind of, sort of, sent him something back challenging him and now this happened!” He breathed quickly after finishing his explanation. Keating only raised an eyebrow at him.

“And I suspect Agent Walsh was behind this as well?” She asked.

“No, no. It was my idea. Well. He watched as I was doing it. But it was all me, I swear.” Oliver promised. His heart was beating faster and he felt a little queasy, probably due to the guilt he was feeling over having been caught.

Annalise eyed him carefully. “I am going to have to speak to Director Hale about this, and we will decide on the manner of your punishment together.”

“Yes ma’am.” Oliver answered glumly, and she turned away to go out the door again, pausing before she did.

“I will be leaving in three hours, as I don’t think this is the most important issue we’re currently facing. Before I leave, I want you to have your system reset and win one more round with the FBI analyst. Shut him down and don’t worry about the punishment.” She told him. Upon his confused expression, she clarified. “I like to always have the last word in my arguments.”

With that, she swept out of his office. Oliver was stunned at first, but then he sank into his chair, laughing hysterically at what had just passed.

* * *

Danny had never met Director Hale, but he knew when Scott told him to report for a meeting with the Bureau Director, that he was in for it. He stepped out of his office, glaring at Jackson and Lydia where they sat in their cubicles side by side. They gave him sympathetic winces and beckoned to him, but he just shrugged. Their gossip circle would have to wait, and so would their apologies. He headed to the elevator, drawing a deep breath before pressing one of the buttons to a different floor.

The Director’s office was located a few floors above his, and the secretary in front of the door waved Danny in sympathetically, hiding a grin behind her hand. He sighed, pushing the door open and stepping into the office.

Inside was Director Hale, who he’d only ever seen in passing, and another woman in the seat in front of her desk. They both turned to look at him and he moved to leave, unaware that he’d been interrupting.

“No, Mr. Māhealani, please stay.” The black woman who he didn’t recognize stood up, brushing her hands on her skirt. “I was just leaving.”

“That’s Agent Māhealani.” Hale corrected her through her teeth. Danny didn’t move. “Please come in. We need to talk. I’ll see you in a few hours, Director.” She finished. The other woman – Director Keating of the CIA, Danny supposed, nodded to her before pushing past Danny and heading out the door.

“Was that..?” Danny didn’t finish his question, but Director Hale fixed her gaze on him and nodded sharply. She gestured to the chair the other woman had just vacated and he slunk into it, guiltily.

“I assume you know what you’re here about, Agent.” She said.

“I’m so, so sorry. I just thought since it was our case first we had the right to it and we didn’t want to lose it just because they wanted the new lead.” He tried to explain.

“We?” She questioned, eying him warily. He realized his mistake there and backtracked to cover for Jackson and Lydia.

“The team- I mean, I acted on my own ma’am, but I did it for the team.” Director Hale didn’t look like she believed him but he held his tongue until she moved on.

“Director Keating and I spent our meeting discussing the repercussions you and Agent Hampton would be facing for this. Would you like to know what we decided?” Hale stared him down, and her blank expression didn’t tell him if she was angry or disappointed, though he suspected both.

“Am I fired?” He asked, cringing. Director Hale actually laughed.

“We decided that things would go much faster if we combined efforts on the case. Working together, rather than setting each other back through, uh, petty sabotage.” She looked down her nose at him and he wanted to blush. “I want you to make some space in your office, he’ll be arriving in a few hours.”

“Who?” Danny wasn’t sure what he had missed.

“Agent Hampton. Who will be arriving shortly and will be setting up space in your office while you work on the case.”

“Oh. _Oh_. Shit. I mean. Sorry. I’ll go move some of my equipment to make room.” He backtracked, standing up to leave.

“Yes you will.” The Director said sharply. “And no more screwing around, especially when he arrives. If you two can’t work together, you’ll both have to face a different punishment – suspension, more likely.”

“I’ll be on my best behavior, ma’am.” Danny promised. Hale cut her eyes towards the door and he recognized it as a dismissal, leaving quickly. The secretary in the front watched him get on the elevator curiously but he didn’t say anything to her.

When Lydia and Jackson spotted him, they pulled him aside to talk.

“What did she say?” Jackson hissed, hitting his arm.

“What did you tell her?” Lydia followed. They both looked wide-eyed and scared, and were drawing attention from the others on the team. He motioned them to keep quiet, whispering his response.

“It’s fine, I just got chewed out for fucking around with the CIA guy.”

“Are you going to get fired?” Jackson asked in a raised voice. Danny looked around quickly to make sure no one heard, and then turned back.

“No, no. I’m sure it’s going to be a lot of paperwork and lecturing, but for now I just,” there he lowered his voice even further. “I got assigned to work with Hampton on the case. He’s coming here to help me with the search, I guess.”

“Hampton?”

“He’s the CIA tech who works for the Keating whatever-number. The guy who was intruding into my system, though, only after I played in his first. The one who made my computer print my face on ‘Wanted’ posters. You know, Agent Oliver Hampton, CIA.”

Their expressions had turned to surprise and shock while he spoke. “You’re kidding me!” Lydia half-shouted.

“He’s coming in to help or whatever, I think mostly just to appease the Directors – oh, hey, guess who met the Director of the CIA today, she’s just as terrifying as Director Hale, just so you know.” He cast an annoyed glance at them.

“We are so sorry we got you into this, Danny, next time we’ll cause trouble by ourselves.”

Danny rubbed his temple like he could already feel the migraine from their next adventure coming on. “You better.” He told them, and returned to his office. If he pretended not to feel the eyes of the rest of the team watching curiously, maybe it would be like Danny wasn’t currently the topic of all the gossip in HQ. Better yet, he could hole up in his office until they all forgot.

He closed the door behind the pairs of prying eyes and turned the lock; Director Hale probably wouldn’t hand deliver Hampton to his office but whoever did could just knock.

He wasn’t even surprised when he walked into his office to see blue screens of death on all his monitors, just rolled his eyes. There was a table in the corner covered in boxes – evidence boxes with files and casework that would work as a desk for Oliver. He slowly started moving the boxes to under his own desks.

* * *

When Director Keating returned, Oliver was anxiously awaiting her at the entrance of the building. Her usual entourage surrounded her but she motioned them ahead of her, capable of taking care of herself. She motioned him to follow her onto one of the building’s elevators.

“What did you decide?” He asked her, once they were alone. She shook her head.

“In my office, Hampton.” She warned him. He didn’t think anyone would be listening to them, but he knew that as the CIA director she had regulations in place and a slight sense of paranoia at all times.

Silently, he followed her through the heavy door into her office, taking a seat across from her desk. He’d only been in the Director’s space a few times, from when he was hired to a couple times after that on the most important business.

“Is your computer system restored to its full capacity?” She asked.

“Yes ma’am.” He’d gotten to work on fixing them the moment she’d left, and though the other hacker had done quite a number on them trying to get back at him, it had only taken him a couple hours. Māhealani had pulled out a lot of stops but Oliver was an older and more experienced agent, with a slight advantage over the FBI analyst.

“Pack one of them up for travel. You have at least one transportable monitor and can access the CIA database from any point with it, correct?” Oliver frowned.

“Yes, of course. Am I being reassigned?”

“No. You’re going on a field trip. You and the agent you’ve been cyberbullying for the past couple of days are going to solve this puzzle of the suspect’s identity.”

“Together?” He asked, trying to understand why the director would want them even in the same room after the harm they’d caused.

“Since the two of you have made little progress on your own, Director Hale and I chose to make this case a joint effort between our two agencies. You two need to identify this man so that the Keating 5 and the team Hale has assigned can then work together on locating him and arresting him.”

“Okay.” He said, thinking ahead to how this would work. “So you’ll be waiting on our ID?”

“No pressure, Agent Hampton.” She answered, letting a small smirk creep onto her face. Oliver pushed his glasses up his nose a little.

“Okay. I can do this. When do you want me to be ready?”

“As soon as possible.” Keating responded. “I need to update the team and make sure they’re ready to head out. Director Hale very graciously offered her headquarters for them to work together while you and Agent Māhealani work.”

“What will they be doing?” He asked curiously. It didn’t seem like a good idea to have the team involved before they even found the suspect. There was no guarantee that even with the FBI’s help he would be able to.

“The two teams will work together on building a profile, anything that may be able to help narrow down your search, and contacting local police with a sketch the FBI analyst created to see if any of them can identify him. I’ve also tasked them with keeping the peace between you and Māhealani because we don’t quite trust you two not to get in trouble.” The Director eyed Oliver suspiciously and he reddened.

“I’ll go now then, and I should be ready soon.” He offered and she nodded briskly. Oliver slipped out of the office and within a few minutes was back to his own.

Some of the computer monitors he owned were easier to transport for a reason: when the team needed to bring him on a far case, he needed to have his system with him. It made packing easier when one or two of them were ready-to-go designs, not laptops but compact and with few wires and extra external pieces. Director Keating probably hadn’t realized he would be ready so quickly.

When he had them packed away in protective bags, he left the office to find her briefing the team. Oliver considered running back into his office before they noticed him, of course they all would hear about his mistakes. But the team looked mostly unsurprised, save their handlers, Bonnie and Frank. They were looking at him a little angrily, and Oliver winced as he imagined the lecture that would be coming his way from them.

He couldn’t hear what she was saying, but at the end Keating clapped her hands together and her team scattered. He met her where she was standing, patting the bags he had slung over his shoulder for his equipment. She nodded briskly at him and they waited for the team to join them.

When Connor came, he smiled softly at Oliver, who pretended not to see. Keating coughed quietly. The rest of the team joined them, including sour faced Bonnie. She looked like she wanted to pull Oliver aside and yell at him, so he stood a little behind Director Keating and out of the line of her glare.

“Walsh, take some of Hampton’s gear. Team Keating, to the SUVs.” The Director interrupted, gesturing to them to follow her. Oliver hurried to walk beside her after dumping the heavier of his two bags in Connor’s arms.

“You’re coming with us?” He asked, worried. She nodded.

“Someone’s got to handle the politics of your mistakes, and I thought it would be better for me to do it. Director Hale and I will be handling the paperwork and explaining the situation to the rest of our boards. We’ve decided to keep your involvement out of the official story, for yours and Agent Māhealani’s sakes.”

Oliver breathed out a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Director Keating, really.” He’d probably have to stay on her good side for the rest of his career now, in thanks. Maybe send her a gift, but she didn’t seem like the flowers or fruit basket type.

They followed her out and Oliver sighed deeply as he walked.

* * *

A knock sounded on the heavy wood of Danny’s door before he was ready. Swearing, he closed his laptop and slid it into his bag beneath the desk, rolling his chair back before standing.

He opened the door to Director Hale and Director Keating. Behind them was the small Filipino man he recognized as Oliver Hampton. Down in the main office, members of Oliver’s CIA team were introducing themselves to Danny’s team. Danny looked back up to Oliver.

“Come on in.” He said, moving out of the doorway. Oliver ducked his head shyly as he walked in. The Directors turned to leave them, which surprised Danny a little, but he shrugged it off. He held out his hand for Oliver to shake. “I’m Danny Māhealani. But you know that.”

“Oliver Hampton.” The other agent took Danny’s hand, grinning. “Yeah, that was funny. I also know your address and a weird amount of information about your family.”

Danny eyed Oliver again. He was really attractive when he smiled like that, and the shy flash of his teeth was mirrored in his eyes. Danny guessed that not a lot of people noticed that behind the thick glasses. He cleared his throat.

“You’ll need to fix my computers before we get started.” He said. “I wasn’t going to waste my time figuring out how to reset my system when you can probably do it in a few minutes.” Oliver started laughing again. He shot a glance at Danny’s chair, but instead Danny pointed to the spare chair in the room. Olive moved it over while Danny took his own seat, leaning over Oliver’s shoulder to see what he was doing.

“It’s an easy enough fix for me.” Oliver mentioned offhandedly. He pressed the power button that had refused to work for Danny, holding it for ten seconds. A blank screen came up with a green cursor. The CIA agent typed something in quickly, hitting enter almost before Danny saw it.

“Did that say..?” He trailed off, raising an eyebrow at Oliver.

“Connor is a prick?” Oliver answered. “Yes. That was the password I set up. You never would have gotten that.”

“Who’s Connor?” Danny asked, recognizing it as an inside joke.

“Pretty boy from my team downstairs.” Oliver shrugged, leaning back in his seat. “He’ll be up here sooner or later.”

Danny rolled backwards to the window of the room, peeking out to see the rest of Oliver’s team. He honed in on the guy Oliver was talking about immediately.

“White, definitely gay, bit of stubble?” He asked.

“That’s my ex-boyfriend.” Oliver elaborated. Danny looked at Oliver in surprise. “I know, he’s out of my league. Your computer’s rebooting.” He changed the subject.

“I wasn’t going to say that.” Danny muttered. He watched his usual screen load up, pausing only to flash the words “Oliver: 1. Danny: 0.” at him in an arrogant manner. Danny glared at Oliver again, who snickered.

Oliver rolled his chair to the desk Danny cleared for him. He started unpacking a bag that was slung over his shoulder, placing his own equipment down carefully.

“What are the search parameters you’ve run to identify the suspect so far?” He asked Danny.

“Local driver’s licenses of white men ages 20 to 50. I started statewide then I expanded to some of the surrounding states. You?”

“Released convicts in the area matching the same description as yours. I think this guy would have to have a record.” Oliver said, shrugging. Danny understood his reasoning.

“Yeah, obviously he wouldn’t escalate to this kind of violence without any prior offenses.” He agreed. “So why hasn’t his face been recognized?”

“Your team circulated the sketch among the local departments, right?” Danny nodded his response. “Huh.”

“It could be that he isn’t a local. Maybe he comes from out of town and does this while he’s here?” Danny suggested. Oliver frowned, thinking it over.

“When he’s away from his home, so that it can’t be traced back to his own comfort zone? I guess that could be a reason. Run the dates with local business conventions, annual trips from out-of-state companies or organizations, anything along those lines.” The CIA agent suggested. Danny turned to his computer, entering the descriptions. Oliver had turned on his own monitor, stringing a connector cable from his hard drive and reaching to plug the other end to Danny’s.

“What’s that for?” Danny asked, his fingers paused over his keyboard.

“It will go faster if we combine our tech. Well, maybe not faster, because it will broaden the searches, but we’ll be more likely to find a match.”

Danny hummed. Oliver continued what he was doing, moving away.

“I’ve got a few companies that do seasonal business this month in the area. Their itineraries could line up with the murders, I’ll run the employees for those matching our description.” Danny said. Oliver glanced over.

“You’re going to have to hand check the employees though.” He said. “There’s going to be a lot of angry white men in the roster.”

Danny shrugged. “I can run more specific searches but we know nothing about him. This is the best we can do for now.” He typed out the commands and leaned back in the seat. “Now we wait.” He said.

Oliver was finishing the task he had started and Danny’s monitor blinked a few times as it adjusted to the connection from Oliver’s. The CIA technology worked a little bit differently from the tech Danny was used to, but between the two of them there would be more data to access and a higher chance of coming across the suspect.

“So.” Oliver said. He looked at Danny curiously. “What was the deal with hacking my computer?” The FBI agent turned scarlet.

“We needed the case.” He said. “So we figured as long as we got to the suspect first you- the Keating 5- couldn’t take our claim to it.”

“You know, there’s nine of us now, I don’t know why that nickname stuck.” Oliver answered, grinning. He counted them in his head; himself, Connor, Michaela, Laurel, Wes and Rebecca, Asher, Frank and Bonnie. The last two were the team handlers, but they were still technically part of his team.

“Our team works differently.” Danny said. “There’s about fifteen agents on this team but they work in rotation and get switched out depending on what skills they have and how they would help the case.”

“That’s different.” Oliver said, wrinkling his nose a little. “I like that my team is like a family.”

“Oh, they are too! They’re my favorite team to work with in the Bureau. I get assigned to different teams, as one of the top technical analysts here.” Danny explained.

“That’s also weird.” Oliver added. Danny shrugged. His talents were good enough for all the teams in the Bureau, so he didn’t mind that the techies switched teams. He knew that Scott’s team always requested him, because he was their favorite too.

“Speaking of weird, then, what’s the weirdest case the Keating 9 has ever had?” Danny asked. He turned his chair a little to face Oliver, who thought carefully.

“Okay, it’s a top secret, confidential case and very hush hush.” He warned Danny, who drew his fingers across his mouth in a zipping motion. Oliver lowered his voice as he continued. “Director Keating’s husband was sleeping with an intern, had her killed and covered it up. When one of our agents tried to investigate the death- the two of them had been friends, Mr. Keating tried to frame her. So there was a bit of undercover investigation and chasing cold leads, but Wes knew Rebecca was innocent and he ended up discovering Keating’s involvement. Then he tried to kill Rebecca in front of half of the team, Wes killed Keating and everything was really intense after that.” Danny was listening wide eyed.

“Holy shit.” He said, when Oliver finished. “First of all, am I going to get murdered for knowing that? And second, how did the director take that?”

“Well, Keating knocked up the intern so she wasn’t happy with him. I wasn’t there when he died, and neither was she, but she knew Wes had done the right thing and helped him and Rebecca stay out of trouble for it.” Oliver said. Danny was astonished.

“That’s crazy.” He said. “Our cases aren’t anything like that.”

“Well, that was pretty unique for us too. What would you say is your weirdest?”

“We were investigating these attacks in a small town, once. The people thought they were turning into werewolves and went around biting and attacking other townsfolk. It had turned out it was LSD induced hallucinations from the local water source, and it actually affected a few people on the team before we realized it. Scott, Derek, Jackson, Isaac, Boyd and Erica were all temporary werewolves.” Danny said, laughing as he remembered it. Oliver cracked a grin too.

“Sounds like the Salem Witch Trials all over again.” He said. Danny laughed harder at that. Then his computer beeped softly at him. He turned to look at it, scrolling through the photos displayed on the screen.

Oliver was watching over his shoulder. “Is that him?” He asked suddenly, pointing.

Danny enlarged the picture before shaking his head.

“His nose is different, and his eyes are set too far apart. Not him.”

Oliver sighed and rolled his eyes. It never would have been this easy, not if he and Danny hadn’t had any luck on their own.

Four hours later, Danny and Oliver had bounced off every possible idea they could come up with, resulting in a lot of leads that took them nowhere. Oliver was slumped down in his chair and Danny was typing, frustrated and disappointed, on his keys.

“What if he’s an undocumented immigrant?” Oliver suggested. “And we can’t identify him anyway because he isn’t registered in the databases, which are based off citizenship.”

“We already tried that.” Danny said. “We ruled that out a while ago.”

“Why did we rule that out again?” Oliver asked, sighing. Danny stopped typing and leaned back in his chair, tossing a pen from his desk up in the air and catching it.

“Victimology and something else.” Danny answered. He rolled his eyes and flipped the pen again. “I think it was that any priors he would have been picked up for would have gotten him deported and he wouldn’t have been able to continue on the same time pattern. We profiled him as someone who would get in trouble a lot.”

“But that would explain the space between the murders.” Oliver said, continuing the same argument they’d had three times already. “If he’d gotten sent out of the country and couldn’t continue.”

“Nope.”

“I know. So how is he getting away with it? How haven’t they caught him yet, or recognized him as a danger?” Oliver sighed.

Danny dropped the pen. He sat up and threw himself at the keyboard, typing furiously. “Repeat what you just said, please.”

“Why hasn’t he been caught?”

“No, before that.”

“If he’d gotten sent out of the country and couldn’t continue?” Oliver said.

Danny was silent for a moment, then cheered. He turned his monitor to face Oliver, triumphantly displaying a news article.

“Three years of silence, but _American_ silence.” He said. Oliver scanned the article, reading it quickly. “Why we didn’t catch this, who knows, because the signature is one of a kind, but the pattern existed outside of the United States and we didn’t realize it.”

“Cut-throat killer strikes again, taking third victim in the month.” He read off the screen. “Cut-throat? That’s very literal.”

“It’s Google translated from Italian. So this guy was out of the country for a year, in Italy. In...” Danny scrolled up and squinted at the screen. “2013.”

“Did you cross-reference similar murders?”

“Yeah, but only within the states!” Danny exclaimed. “Because we profiled him as being a local, because all nine of the murders took place here.”

Oliver slid over to his computer, leaning over Danny’s shoulder. “Look up international murders in 2012.” Danny obeyed, scrolling through the results and skimming the details for a match.

“No.” He said, disappointed.

“Try 2014.”

“No again.”

Oliver sat back. “Okay, well, add the 2013 deaths to the timeline and that we know he was in Italy.” Danny had flipped back to the article and was reading through it.

“They happened in Naples.” He informed Oliver. “Same dates, which we still don’t know why they’re important.”

“Why would he be in Naples?” Oliver asked.

“Family trip?” Danny suggested. “We could check plane tickets that were sold but we don’t know when his flights were, or when he came back. Let’s figure out the gap years instead. Why wouldn’t he have killed in those years?”

“Obvious, he didn’t have access to victims that fit his type.” Oliver said. “He goes for blonde, tall, white prostitutes. Maybe he was somewhere he couldn’t find them.”

“Africa?”

“Or Asia.” Oliver added.

“I’ll look up yearly international flights.” Danny said. “Local man, U.S. citizen but he’s been away for the past three years. White. Possibly Italian.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Naples is a tourist hot-spot, but most people visit Rome or Venice when they go to Italy. And they don’t spend close to a month in Naples.”

“So he may have ties to the city.” Oliver realized. Danny nodded, then frowned at his screen. “What?”

“There’s a good couple thousand people who’ve had consecutive international flights out around the month of February in the three year time span who fit the profile.”

“Fuck.” Oliver said. In his head, Danny agreed.

“We just need to find one more piece of the puzzle, and then we’ll have it.” He bit out. Both agents slumped back down in their chairs, running through the evidence again.

A few moments later, someone knocked on the door, startling them. Danny sat up.

“Come in.” He called. He noticed a quick flash of panic across Oliver’s face, but didn’t understand until Connor opened the door. Of course, the ex-boyfriend.

“I came to see how you were doing, if you guys needed anything.” Connor said. “I’m Connor Walsh, by the way. Ollie and I work together.” Danny noticed Oliver wince at the nickname, and the other agent slid down in the chair a little.

“Danny Māhealani.” He said, offering his hand. Connor moved into the room to shake it.

“Coffee would be nice, Connor.” Oliver said. “And lunch.”

“Oliver, it’s like eight o clock at night.” Connor said. “Do you want dinner?”

“Will Keating let you run out for takeout?” Oliver asked. Danny could feel the tension between them, including a frustrated hostility emanating from Oliver.

“Probably.” Connor shrugged. “Thai?”

Oliver turned to Danny. “What do you like?”

“There’s a place that does Philippine take-out not far from here, Jackson can give you the address. I don’t know if you like _adobo_ or _tocino_ , Oliver, but-”

“Of course I do!” Oliver cut in. “I’m Filipino, that’s my favorite. Yeah, Connor, can you get us Philippine food? And coffee.”

“Got it.” Connor said, backing out of the doorway with a smile at Oliver. But Oliver didn’t notice because he was beaming happily at Danny. Danny chuckled softly.

“You aren’t happy with him, it’s obvious.” He said. Oliver shrugged.

“We broke up.” He said. Danny already knew that because Oliver had mentioned being Connor being his ex, hours before.

“Do you mind if I ask what happened?”

“Not really, I mean, it’s nothing major. He was keeping secrets from me, about the team. About things he did. I got upset because we were agents on the same team and we were partners and he should have trusted me to help him.” Oliver kept it a little vague, even though he didn’t think Danny would judge them for the full story. It was just partly classified information.

“Work can get between couples, too often.” Danny said, nodding. “My ex used to be on Scott’s team but he took some personal time because his brother died on a case, and he couldn’t bring himself to come back.”

Oliver immediately picked up on the pronoun, filing that away in his head. “Did he break it off?”

“No, I did actually. I knew he was going to leave after Aiden died, so I told him he needed to heal and to go find himself. They were twins, so it was really tough for him.”

“Jobs like ours require a lot of sacrifices, either relationships or family. It sucks, frankly.”

“Yeah, I haven’t seen my family in a while – they’re all back in Hawaii. I’d do anything for them, but it’s kind of hard to be a family when I’m over here all the time.” Danny’s tone turned sad towards the end, and Oliver wanted to reach out and comfort him, but his mind had caught onto something Danny said.

“That’s something we haven’t considered yet!” He said, turning to his computer. Within moments he had added a new parameter to narrow the list of men Danny had found: a family member in law enforcement. Danny gasped.

“We were having trouble putting that together! Someone is protecting him, probably his father or brother, it’s usually a close relative.”

Oliver grinned and grabbed Danny’s face, pecking a kiss on his mouth. He turned back to the computer, barely realizing what he’d done in his excitement while Danny froze in surprise.

“If they’ve been covering up his tracks for all this time, they would’ve kept him from getting a record.” Danny recovered slowly, eyes still wide as saucers while Oliver focused on the program. The list had decreased to about fifty names, and Oliver opened the photo ids in a separate window, examining them face by face. Danny blinked away his shock and tried to help.

“That guy’s too old.” He said, pointing. Oliver clicked it away. “And his nose is shaped weirdly. Not him.”

By the time they had a couple dozen men left, Danny pointed to another photo.

“Not him?”

“No, make it bigger and compare it to the security camera footage. I think that’s him.” Oliver obeyed, and they spent a minute studying the similar features on the two photos.

“It could be.”

“Access his information.”

“Nicholas di Lauro, 30 years old. He lives in the area, his uncle was a cop who retired two years ago.” Oliver read out loud. “Di Lauro? Why does that sound familiar?”

“That’s an Italian mafia name.” Danny said. “I’m not kidding – the Camorra line right out of Naples. What is this, The Godfather?”

“Turns out he’s been picked up on suspected gang related charges that never went anywhere. Want to bet his uncle helped him get out of those?” Oliver said.

“I never bet against the truth.” Danny responded. “His uncle’s been helping the family get away with a lot, but now that he’s not a cop they’ve probably resorted to bribing the local department. And it could be why he got caught this time, with no one to cover the tapes for him.”

They stared at each other excitedly, caught up in the moment. Oliver’s grin was wide and infectious and Danny was radiating triumph.

“We have to go tell the Directors.” Oliver said, about to stand up.

“Wait.” Danny said, immediately putting a hand on his shoulder. “We have to get the details of all the cases the uncle has been involved in too, they’re all tainted. Everything the family got away with – I bet there’s plenty more murders than just our perp.”

“We can do that later, Danny, we have to arrest this guy before he has the chance to kill again.” Oliver argued. Danny nodded.

“Yeah, you’re right. We can do that later – don’t think you can get out of it either, you’re coming back to help me.” He threatened in a teasing voice. Oliver laughed.

“I’m okay with that.”

* * *

They practically ran to find the Directors, who’d apparently been timing how long it would take them.

“Six hours.” Hale said, checking the clock. “Not bad, agents.”

They looked at each other, then Oliver burst out into the story. “He’s connected to the mob and his uncle’s a cop who covered up his crimes as best as he could and also probably other mafia crimes that we can revisit and prosecute when we find out if the uncle tampered with them!”

Hale and Keating both stood up.

“We’ll arrest the suspect first, and then we’ll get the uncle on tampering with evidence and interfering with an investigation. That will likely open up an investigation into his previous cases. Prepare for a heavy work load, both of you.” Director Hale warned. She and Keating left to inform the team, leaving Danny and Oliver in the office.

“That’s it then.” Danny said, looking at the other agent. “We solved it.”

“Before Connor even got here with our take-out.” Oliver said mournfully. Danny laughed.

“We can still hang out in my office and eat.” He said. “That way we’ll both be on call when they need us. And we’ll have food.”

“That sounds perfect.” Oliver held his hand up. Danny eyed him curiously, then Oliver rolled his eyes. “High five me, Danny.”

Danny lifted his hand, smacking it against Oliver’s. They both grinned.

“Food?”

“Food.”

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I'm finally posting this because every time I try to edit it I end up hating it so I'm posting it now before I try to trash it.
> 
> This is a very belated birthday present for Serena who is a blessing for putting up with me promising to post this for the past few months for her and not actually doing it. First of all, this is coming in two parts! This was just as far as I made it on this section of time, and the rest wasn't fitting into the timeline how I wanted it to, so it's going to be part two!
> 
> Until then, enjoy!


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